If, ceaseless, thus the fowls of heaven he feeds; If, o'er the fields, such lucid robes he spreads: Will he not care for you, ye faithless, say?— Is he unwise?-or, are ye less than they?

THE RAISING OF LAZARUS.

Reb. Thomas Bale.

"Tis still thine hour, O Death!

Thine, Lord of Hades, is the kingdom still:

Yet, twice thy sword unstain'd hath sought its sheath,

Tho' twice upraised to kill:

And once again the tomb

Shall yield its captured prey :

A mightier arm shall pierce the pathless gloom, And rend the prize away :

Nor comes thy Conqueror arm'd with spear or

sword ;

[word.

He hath no arms but prayer, no weapon but his

"Tis now the fourth sad morn

Since Lazarus, the pious and the just,

To his last home by sorrowing kinsmen borne,

Hath parted, dust to dust;

The grave-worm revels now

Upon his mouldering clay;

And He before whose car the mountains bow,

The rivers roll away

In conscious awe, He only can revive

[live!

Corruption's withering prey, and call the dead to

Yet still the sisters keep

Their sad and silent vigil at the grave, Watching for Jesus-" Comes he not to weep ? He did not come to save!"

But now one straining eye

The advancing form hath traced ;

And soon in wild resistless agony

Have Martha's arms embraced

The Saviour's feet." O Lord! hadst thou been

nigh

[high !"

But speak the word e'en now: it shall be heard on

They led him to the cave,

The rocky bed where now in darkness slept
Their brother, and his friend ;-then at the grave
They paused, for "Jesus wept."

O love sublime and deep!

O Hand and Heart divine!

He comes to rescue, though he deigns to weep.

The captive is not thine,

O Death! thy bands are burst asunder now, There stands beside the grave a mightier far than

thou.

"Come forth," he cries, "thou dead!"

O God! what means that strange and sudden sound That murmurs from the tomb,-that ghastly head With funeral fillets bound?

It is a living form,

The loved, the lost, the won,

Won from the grave, corruption, and the worm! "And is not this the Son

Of God?" they whispered; while the sisters pour'd Their gratitude in tears: for they had known the Lord.

Yet now, the Son of God

For such he was in truth-approach'd the hour
For which alone the path of thorns he trode;
In which to thee the power,

O Death! should be restored,—

And yet restored in vain :

For tho' the blood of ransom must be pour'd,
The spotless victim slain,-

He shall but yield to conquer, fall to rise,
And make the cold dark grave a portal to the skies.

THE DEATH OF THE FIRST-BORN.

Rogers.

'Tis midnight—'tis midnighto'er Egypt's dark sky, And in whirlwind and storm the sirocco sweeps by: All arid and hot is its death-breathing blast,— Each sleeper breathes thick, and each bosom beats fast.

And the young mother wakes, and arouses from rest,
And
presses more closely her babe to her breast;
But the heart that she presses is deathlike and still,
And the lips that she kisses are breathless and chill.
And the young brother clings to the elder in fear,
As the gust falls so dirge-like and sad on his ear;
But that brother returns not the trembling embrace:
He speaks not-he breathes not-death lies in his
place.

And the first-born of Egypt are dying around; 'Tis a sigh-'tis a moan—and then slumber more

sound :

They but wake from their sleep, and their spirits have fled

They but wake into life, to repose with the dead.

And there lay the infant still smiling in death, And scarce heaved its breast as it yielded its breath; And there laythe boy, yet in youth's budding bloom, With the calmness of sleep-but the hue of the tomb!

And there fell the youth in the pride of his prime, In the morning of life-in the spring-tide of crime: And unnerved is that arm, and fast closed is that eye,

And cold is that bosom which once beat so high.

And the fond mother's hope, and the fond father's trust,

And the widow's sole stay, are returning to dust: Egypt has not a place where there is not one dead, From the proud monarch's palace to penury's shed.

And the hearths of that country are desolate now. And the crown of her glory is struck from her brow: But while proud Egypt trembles, all Israel is freeUnfetter'd-unbound, as the wave of the sea.